Asus has been selling a line of Raspberry Pi-like single-board computers under the Asus Tinker Board brand for years. Aimed at developers and hobbyists, the little computers typically feature ARM-based chips and support for Linux and Android-based software.

Earlier this year the company unveiled a 100 x 100mm (3.9″ x 3.9″) model called the Tinker Board 3, but since then the company has since re-branded it as the Tinker Board 3N and Asus is re-introducing the little computer.

The little computer is powered by a Rockchip RK3568 processor featuring four ARM Cortex-A55 CPU cores with support for speeds up to 2 GHz, Mali+G52 graphics, and a neural processing unit with up to 1 TOPS of AI performance.

While the website for the original Tinker Board 3 has been removed, a glance at an Internet Archive snapshot from earlier this year shows that the specs are nearly identical to those for the Tinker Board 3N.

  • Memory: 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB of dual-channel LPDDR4/LPDDR4X memory
  • Storage: 32GB, 64GB, or no eMMC storage + microSD card reader and 16MB SPI flash
  • M.2 2230 E-Key: 1 x for WiFi 5 or 6 + Bluetooth (PCIe 2.0 x1, USB 2.0)
  • M.2 3042/3052 B-Key: 1 x for 4G, 5G, or SSD (PCIe 3.0 x1, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, SIM)
  • Display: 1 x HDMI, 1 x LVDS, and 1 x eDP
  • Audio: 1 x 3.5mm audio jack, 1 x stereo speaker pin (3W each, 4 ohm), and 1 x HDMI audio
  • USB: 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C OTG, 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 2 x USB 2.0 pin headers
  • Networking: Dual LAN ports (with PoE supported via expansion module)

There are also several headers for COM and CAN Bus, GPIO headers, and headers for a fan, RTC battery, and other hardware, plus a DC power input jack.

Asus says the board will be available in at least “three distinct flavors,” including a Tinker Board 3N, 3N Lite, and 3N Plus, but the company hasn’t indicated precise specs or pricing for each model yet.

By default, the boards will ship with a wireless card with support for WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5, but it seems like they should also work with WiFi 6 and/or cellular modules.

Asus says the Tinker Board 3N supports Android 12 and Debian 11, although I wouldn’t be surprised if you could also run other GNU/Linux distributions on the board.

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  1. Probably cost more than any RK3588 board as you gotta pay for the ASUS tax and the poor software support.

    Reply